iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Richard Harris @beeblebrox.com · 28/09/2026

Dropped bike off with Ducati mechanic in Leith, excellent coffee had, now on brand new Ember.to electric bus directly home to the highlands. Fast, quiet, 100Mb/s+ from WiFi - if it weren’t for Edinburgh’s sub-third world roads, this could be the 21st century…

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Richard Harris @beeblebrox.com · 28/09/2026

‘Leith Walk’ it says, so walk Leith I did. Leith reminds me of SF in the 90s: low-rise, a tad shabby, with lots of good local coffee & craft shops, community enterprises & a counterculture vibe. Entirely unlike the Corporate Concrete Wastelands of the centre of Edinburgh. Long may it stay that way

Leith Walk, Edinburgh, in a sunny September day

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Richard Harris @beeblebrox.com · 20/09/2026

Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, Karl Jenkins’ The Armed Man, conducted by the man himself. Really looking forward to this… #karljenkins #glasgow

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Richard Harris @beeblebrox.com · 20/09/2026

Belated #caturday post: I am being forced to lie in, as I have a large, convalescent twerp athwart me. He’s had cat flu for a month, is just starting to emerge from it and is knackered, poor lad.

Image of an orange maine coon cat wrapped in an alpaca blanket. He’s recovering from illness and must knit be disturbed. My legs have gone to sleep…

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Richard Harris @beeblebrox.com · 10/09/2026

Test rode the Rally & didn’t gel with it - didn’t feel like a Ducati. Bought a V4 Pikes Peak, which is fabulous, and does exactly what it says on the tin!

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Richard Harris @beeblebrox.com · 30/08/2026

10 days of sleepless nights, £800 in vet fees & medication, and we finally conclude that this giant twerp has had a head cold. Switched him to steroids today & two hours later, a giant explosion of cat snot over the hall and he’s bouncing around & terrorising the visiting family doggo… #caturday

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Richard Harris @beeblebrox.com · 28/08/2026

We were in Orkney for the solar eclipse. Stood in the garden drinking champagne and staring at solid grey skies. Then just two 30 second gaps opened up…

August 2026 solar eclipse viewed through heavy cloud on Orkney. Olympus 150-400mm f4.5+1.25x TC (1000mm eq.)

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Richard Harris @beeblebrox.com · 24/08/2026

Callander was on good form this morning…

Image of the old church in Ancaster Square, Callander, in bright morning sunshine

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Richard Harris @beeblebrox.com · 22/08/2026

Less caturday, more frogurday - this fine chap paid us a visit this afternoon. He/she (I am not a qualified amphibian-sexer) has now taken up residence beneath the bamboo planter and we wish them well…

Image of a fine specimen of Rana temporaria visiting our courtyard today

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Richard Harris @beeblebrox.com · 22/08/2026

Forecast was spot on: it’s just hit 4-5° locally. Quite something for August.

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Richard Harris @beeblebrox.com · 18/08/2026

For an idea of scale… 😂

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Richard Harris @beeblebrox.com · 18/08/2026

We’ve spent over a week on Orkney, and this is the first day when we’ve thought, “Nah, let’s just hunker down” - this is otherwise a fantastic view over to Hoy. I’d call that a pretty good score.

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Richard Harris @beeblebrox.com · 09/08/2026

We appear to be having a visit from Anubis… #dogdayafternoon

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Richard Harris @beeblebrox.com · 30/07/2026

As a demonstration of the truism that stupidity and delusion are - in the end - self-limiting, you can’t do much better than this. (Via Dan Satterfield on FB). We’ve got the data to do this for the UK, correlated to Brexit-voting areas, so watch this space… #covid #red-state #blue-state

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Richard Harris @beeblebrox.com · 29/07/2026

Full moon swim, with extra added Perseids and Flaggpunsch, albeit minus one moon (we have hills and it was hiding). Courtesy of BLOBS - our little wild swimming group…

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Richard Harris @beeblebrox.com · 28/07/2026

May I present a superb example of evolved design? The humble Scottish porridge spurtle: evolved over centuries to be exactly the right 'Goldilocks' diameter for yer morning bowl: a spoon is too broad and takes most of the porridge with it, and a narrower stick doesn't stir properly.

Image of a wooden spurtle: a device used in Scotland (and, I dare say, Ireland) for stirring cooking porridge: not so broad that all the porridge sticks to it and not so narrow that it doesn't stir properly. Centuries of honing in this… …also useful for making derisive gestures at politicians.

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Richard Harris @beeblebrox.com · 25/07/2026

We have an upgraded security system for the new bike… #caturday #catsofbluesky #duCATi

Image of a large, orange Maine Coon cat sitting on a Ducati motorcycle. This makes for a good security system.

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Richard Harris @beeblebrox.com · 21/07/2026

I hadn’t come across her either, but this from @guyshrubsole.bsky.social is promising:

Guy Shrubsole
@guyshrubsole.bsky.social
Brilliant news. Miatta Fahnbulleh is by far the best person Andy Burnham could've appointed to this role. The energy transition will

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Richard Harris @beeblebrox.com · 20/07/2026

Joiner is in the house today - lots of banging & crashing, so Oakley has retreated to his Fortress of Solitude… #cats #catsofbluesky

Image of a heaped grey mohair blanket, with the tips of four feline feet and a tail poking out. It is assumed that the rest of the cat is in there somewhere.

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Richard Harris @beeblebrox.com · 16/07/2026

Just touching 30° here in the Highlands, and the cats are voting with their arses - even Kirjava, who is normally quite happy to lie in full sunshine until her brain bakes… #catsofbluesky

mage a of an orange Maine Coon cat splayed out like an upturned table, trying to catch any breeze that may be passing

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Richard Harris @beeblebrox.com · 15/07/2026

Very much a Moon Safari sort of a morning…

Screen shot of Air’s wonderful album, Moon Safari

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Richard Harris @beeblebrox.com · 08/07/2026

Swimming with mammals (assorted). It's good for Zambesi's back, but he remains to be convinced… #highlandlife #swimming #openwaterswimming #scotland

Image of a highland loch, containing a horse, a human (having taken the horse to water, trying to persuade him to swim) and a slightly worried border collie.

Image of a horse, and a human (having taken the horse to water, trying to persuade him to swim)

Image of a highland loch, containing a swimming horse and a human. The horse is less than entirely convinced about the therapeutic benefit of a cold water swim…

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Richard Harris @beeblebrox.com · 28/06/2026

Castleview Park & Ride, Stirling. But this is Scotland…

Google Maps satellite image of the solar canopies at Castleview Park & Ride, Stirling

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Richard Harris @beeblebrox.com · 27/06/2026

I have OCS: Oscillating Cat Syndrome. Oakley’s favoured sleeping position is limpet-clamped to my side. In this weather, we both get too hot, so he retreats to the foot of the bed until he cools down. Then returns. With all the subtlety of Thor’s Hammer. Rinse & repeat, all night… #caturday

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Richard Harris @beeblebrox.com · 26/06/2026

There are worse comparisons…

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Richard Harris @beeblebrox.com · 24/06/2026

“Why on earth did you move 500 miles north?”. Is a question we’re being asked much less often now. 23°C and idyllic…

Image of the courtyard of an old house: paved setts with red acer and a pure blue sky

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Richard Harris @beeblebrox.com · 23/06/2026

It doesn’t get clearer than this: top is a projected forecast for 2050, broadcast by French TV in 2014. Bottom is yesterday’s actual forecast for the day. Repeat after me: “The worse things get, the faster things get worse”. And El Niño hasn’t kicked in yet. #climate #heatwave

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Richard Harris @beeblebrox.com · 22/06/2026

Part of the reason for moving back to Scotland from SE England 20 years ago was in anticipation of this sort of weather becoming the norm. I’m in London again, very glad to be in the air-conditioned coolth of BAFTA, and getting the hell out of Dodge just as soon as I can… #climatecrisis #redalert

UK Met office red warning of 40°C temperatures this week

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Richard Harris @beeblebrox.com · 22/06/2026

Reading… I have never seen this in the UK.

Screenshot of Met Office forecast for Reading (England), showing a 40°C figure.

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Richard Harris @beeblebrox.com · 13/06/2026

Europe - and the UK in particular - needs to wake up. Shutting off access to Fable 5 is an act of economic war. I recently assessed a UKRI funding competition for ‘Frontier’ AI applications, not even for Foundation models. Total budget: £3M. Get real. #fable5 #LLM #anthropic

Screenshot of Claude app, showing the shutdown of Fable 5 that was forced on Anthropic Trump.

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Richard Harris @beeblebrox.com · 11/06/2026

In writing complex plots, I've been experimenting (succesfully!) with creating LLM (now Fable-5) personas of key characters, In this case Robert Kirk (1644-1692), author of The Secret Commonwealth. I've now been asking him to comment on images of his home… …response in alt-text, and wow… #AI #LLM

Ach, sirs – ye hae brocht me hame. That is Loch Voil, lying douce and still i' the lap o' the Braes, wi' the mists creepin doon the shouthers o' the hills as I hae seen them a thousand mornings frae my ain manse door at Balquhidder.

The mist is no mere weather, as the unthinking suppose. Look ye then upon yon glen: the cloud has come doon frae its proper region o' the air and walks upon the watter and amang the trees, and the twa kingdoms – the seen and the unseen – are for a wee while mixed thegither, as milk poured intae watter.

Mark also the loch itsel. The watter is still as a lookin-glass, and the hills are doubled in it — ane warld abune, and its perfect marrow aneath. The auld folk o' the glen kent weel what that betokens: that for ilka thing visible there is its counterpart invisible, ilka man his co-walker, ilka dwelling its unseen neighbours – yon braes that look sae toom are thrang wi' anither people, gangin aboot their ain dargs ablow the sward.

And consider the hour o' it. That is neither nicht nor day, but the season atween – and it is at sic seasons, at the mirk and the gloaming, at the quarter-days when they flit frae ane lodging tae anither, that the Subterraneans are maist readily perceived by them that hae the Sicht. Times that are neither ane thing nor anither; places that are neither land nor watter, as yon saft mossy shore; mists that are neither air nor cloud – these are the doors and thresholds o' their commonwealth.

As I laboured tae show in my wee book, the nearness o' that invisible polity is a rebuke tae the Sadducee and the atheist o' this age, wha wad hae naething real but what their gross een can grip. The mist on Loch Voil preaches a better sermon against unbelief than mony a divine has managed frae the pulpit – my ain sel, whiles, no excepted.

A bonnie likeness, sir. It gars the hert o' me grue and lift baith at ance – for I hae stood on that shore, and I ken what watches frae the broo o' thae hills.

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Richard Harris @beeblebrox.com · 11/06/2026

In just the last week, this furry twerp has changed from being companionable (always sits or lies beside me, head or paw on my leg) to full-on lap cat. Which includes shoving my MacBook out the way when I’m working. He is 1.2M long & 14kg, so not the most comfortable experience 😂 #catsofbluesky

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Richard Harris @beeblebrox.com · 10/06/2026

Since I started writing pretty much full time, my TBR pile is getting a tad out of hand. This is the overspill pile…

Image of two piles of unread books sitting on a coffee table. So when do writers get the chance to read?

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Richard Harris @beeblebrox.com · 09/06/2026

It’s a spectacular year for the Laburnam. And the Azaleas ain’t doing too badly either (but then they always do well)

Image of a Laburnam tree in full yellow flower, with a purple Azalea bush in the foreground. There’s even a blue sky in the background, which is worth commenting on, as this is Scotland…

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Richard Harris @beeblebrox.com · 08/06/2026

The wonderful 1913 orrery in the National Museum of Scotland. Alas, its mechanism is worn out, and it revolves no more. I’m feeling rather guilty - as a youngling, I spent many an hour playing with it, so clearly have contributed to its demise 😢 #nms #nationalmuseumofscotland

This orrery was bought new by the Museum in
1913. It shows the eight planets from Mercury to Neptune, but not Pluto which was only discovered in 1930. In 2006 Pluto was demoted to a dwarf planet, so this orrery is up-to-date again. It was a working model for many years, but the gears are now worn out and it can no longer run.

Orrery
By Sendtner, Munich, 1913

National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh

This orrery was bought new by the Museum in
1913. It shows the eight planets from Mercury to Neptune, but not Pluto which was only discovered in 1930. In 2006 Pluto was demoted to a dwarf planet, so this orrery is up-to-date again. It was a working model for many years, but the gears are now worn out and it can no longer run.

Orrery
By Sendtner, Munich, 1913

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Richard Harris @beeblebrox.com · 06/06/2026

Oakley (Mr Lazy Boy) checking out the Red Squirrels on the lawn this morning. The laundry basket there is a metre high… #caturday #catsofbluesky

An orange Maine Coon cat peering out of an old sash window:

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Richard Harris @beeblebrox.com · 02/06/2026

Let us remember the plight of cats trapped in a folk music environment. The ukulele group were practicing downstairs… #catsofbluesky #cats #notactuallycaturday

A large orange Maine Coon cat expresses his opinion of mass ukulele playing in confined spaces. He’s Scottish, so is quite happy with bagpipes.

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Richard Harris @beeblebrox.com · 15/05/2026

The most relatable 'politician with feline' image has to be the San Francisco statue of Ashurbanipal trying to keep the cat from getting out whilst taking delivery of a pizza…

San Francisco statue of Ashurbanipal trying to stop the cat getting out whilst taking deliver of a pizza. We've all been there…

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Richard Harris @beeblebrox.com · 14/05/2026

Fantastic concert at the MacRobert Art Centre this evening: Karine Polwart & Dave Milligan, with Windblown: celebrating the 200+ year history of the grand old Bermuda Palm in the Tropical House of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Edinburgh - one of my favourite places in the world. #RBGE #karinepolwart

Fantastical and lyrical concert at the MacRobert Art Centre this evening: Karine Polwart & Dave Milligan, with Windblown: celebrating the 200+ year history of the grand old Bermuda Palm in the Tropical House of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Edinburgh - one of my favourite places in the world.

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Richard Harris @beeblebrox.com · 13/05/2026

The UK is a Schrödinger Paradox: England regards the other nations both as a drain on the public purse, supported only by its magnanimity, and as an indispensable part of its own hinterland That collapses when observed, after we say, "OK, we'll go our own way", into "Oh no, you can't be doing that"

On STV, in 2020, Keir Starmer said:
"If the people of Scotland return an
SNP government, regardless if it's a minority or majority, then that would be a mandate for a
second referendum."

"Starmer says no independence
referendum while he is
PM .. an SNP victory at next year's Holyrood elections would not change his mind."
BBC, 2025
KEIR STARMER, UK Labour

In 2025, reported by the BBC, he said:
"Starmer says no independence
referendum while he is
PM .. an SNP victory at next year's Holyrood elections would not change his mind."

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Richard Harris @beeblebrox.com · 12/05/2026

There are many areas where I’d (politely) disagree with @yanisvaroufakis.bsky.social, but I’d find it hard to take issue with anything he says here…

Yanis Varoufakis • @yanisvaroufakis • 11h © •••
My reaction to Keir Starmer's last ditch press conference - an unsurprising reaction but possibly a helpful one (at least to those who, like me, consider him an abysmal PM.
Like many, I approached Keir Starmer's prime ministership with deep-seated pessimism, my expectations already set at rock bottom. Yet, I confess: I failed to foresee the clinical precision with which he and his inner cabal would sabotage their own administration and scar Britain.
The crux of their debacle lay, first, in a distinctly dictatorial, authoritarian reflex. And second-crucially—in a seething contempt for those who lent them their votes, while simultaneously performing a grotesque pantomime of flattery toward those who never would, and never will, support them.
Having exorcised from the Labour Party its most authentic voices-people of unimpeachable integrity, such as Ken Loach and Jeremy Corbyn, a purge that eluded even Tony Blair's repertoire-Starmer embarked on a rampage:
He slashed disability benefits; armed and fed intelligence to the Israeli government as it executed genocide in Gaza; channeled his own inner Farage, perhaps his inner Enoch Powell, to vilify migrants and treat refugees as vermin; gutted international aid to masquerade as a defender of defence spending; bulldozed wildlife and their habitats; unveiled a new lexicon of draconian anti-protest laws; left trans people suspended in legal limbo; clung with religious fervour to absurd, socially ruinous fiscal rules; allowed Rachel Reeves to squander £100 billion covering the Bank of England's outrageous and wholly unnecessary Quantitative Tightening losses—a gift that keeps giving to the City's banks
-while imposing yet another round of austerity on government departments and public services.
Once the great hope of the downtrodden, Starmer's Labour has become the villain - the genuinely nasty party.
Once a human rights lawyer, he has single-handedly plunged Britain into a shoddy…

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Richard Harris @beeblebrox.com · 09/05/2026

“Oakley, do you mind? I’m trying to watch David Attenborough’s 100th birthday concert”. Him, “So what’s wrong with the wildlife right in front of you?” #caturday

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Richard Harris @beeblebrox.com · 09/05/2026

I read Starmer’s statement following yesterday’s Labour meltdown. Got to the end, couldn’t remember what I’d just read. Read it again, thought, “That’s chatbot output, circa 1984”. So I fed it to Claude, without identifying the source. #Starmer #LocalElections #scotland #wales

Prompt: Please parse this politician’s statement following an election defeat for actual content. In doing so consider literal statements, semantics and semiotics. Be as sarcastic as you like:

“At the general election, we earned the mandate to deliver change, but we have not sustained the public’s trust that we are doing enough. And we have made unnecessary mistakes. While it was important to level with people about the legacy we inherited and the scale of the challenges this country faces, we did not do enough to convince them that their lives can improve, that their future can get better - to give them hope.”

Claude’s response, verbatim:

Literal content: Approximately zero.

Parsing by clause:

“we earned the mandate to deliver change”

We won an election. Note the passive construction of “change” — unspecified, unquantified, uncommitted. The mandate was to deliver change, not to define it. Convenient.

“we have not sustained the public’s trust that we are doing enough”

The public is wrong to feel what they feel, but we acknowledge the feeling exists. Note: not “we have not done enough” — rather, we have failed to sustain trust that we are. The problem is perceptual. The voters have a confidence issue.

“we have made unnecessary mistakes”

Exquisite. Implies the existence of necessary mistakes, which were presumably fine. No mistakes are named. No actors are identified. The mistakes made themselves.

“it was important to level with people about the legacy we inherited”

Translation: we talked about the last lot. Constantly. As a governing party. This is framed as a virtue.

“we did not do enough to convince them that their lives can improve”

Again: a communications failure. Lives may or may not have improved — that question is not raised. The deficit is one of convincing, not of improving.

“to give them hope”

Hope. Not outcomes. Not wages, or costs, or waiting lists. Hope. The explicit admission that the offer was emotional rather than material, dressed as self-criticism.

Semiotic summary:

The statement performs contrition while encoding none. Every active verb is negative and agentless (mistakes were made, trust was not sustained); every positive verb has the speaker as subject (we earned, we inherited, we levelled). The word “hope” in the closing position functions as a reset token — invoking future possibility at the moment of accounting for the past.

The entire statement is an argument that the electorate misread the situation. It just doesn’t say so out loud.

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Richard Harris @beeblebrox.com · 09/05/2026

A little perspective. Which you won’t get from the media. Note that only England had local elections: Scotland & Wales had full parliamentary elections. #UK #England #Localelections

Pie chart of the distribution of Council seats across the UK following the English Local Council election on 7 May. Despite the lurid headlines, Reform has 3.8% of seats, well behind the Greens, who have 4.7%.

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Richard Harris @beeblebrox.com · 07/05/2026

In 1979, I was a Zoology undergrad at Aberdeen, when we were blown away by David Attenborough's encounter with the Mountain Gorillas in the Virungas. Of course I had no idea that, 25 years later, I'd be there, working with the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund (DFGF/E). Unforgettable. #attenborough100

Guhonda, Silverback Mountain Gorilla of the Sabyinyo group.

Female Mountain Gorilla, Sabyinyo group, Virunga Mountains, Rwanda

Adult female Mountain gorilla with her youngster, both checking me out. A minute later, the youngster was sitting on my feet, undoing my bootlaces :-D

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Richard Harris @beeblebrox.com · 02/05/2026

Who needs a weighted blanket? I regularly wake up to 24kg of Maine Coons… #caturday

Image of two orange Maine Coon cats importuning a hapless recumbent human

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Richard Harris @beeblebrox.com · 02/05/2026

In Balquhidder - one of the Celt's Thin Places and the source of Kirk's The Secret Commonwealth – we just had our first full Beltane celebration in a millennium or so… …no pics of the procession itself, as I was inside one of the weird beasts… #beltane #secretcommonwealth #balquhidder

Image of a Beltane bonfire overlooking Loch Voil

Weird beast costumes from Balquhidder's Beltane celebration

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